{"id":8787,"date":"2014-10-29T17:30:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T21:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8787"},"modified":"2014-11-05T12:38:23","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T17:38:23","slug":"politics-as-usual-the-odyssey-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-the-odyssey-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: The Odyssey Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it is finally all over.
\nThe campaign flyers.
\nThe multitude of signs.
\nThe advertisements.
\nThe Twittering and the nattering.
\nThe \u201cDebates.\u201d
\nAll done.
\nPraise the heavens.
\nI think the candidates must be exhausted \u2013 I know I am! 298 days of campaigning is ridiculous. Queen\u2019s Park agrees. There is a proposal being floated around that the Municipal Election period is going to be drastically reduced.
\nI hope it is cut down to three months (or six months, max). That seems far more reasonable to me. We shall see.
\nThe last few days, the last push as it were of the municipal campaign, was marred with some ugliness, which is to be expected. Folks get snarky when they read the tea leaves and the portents are not good. It happens every time. At least there wasn\u2019t a lawsuit this time. Small mercies, I guess.
\nWhen the campaign gets down to the wire, instead of working harder, some simply work dirtier.
\nCase in point, nasty flyers were created and delivered to people\u2019s homes in the last 10 days of the campaign; flyers full of \u2013 to be polite \u2013 distortions and \u201cun-truths\u201d.
\nI had a look at these supposed \u201cattack ad\u201d flyers and had to laugh. They did seem like amateur hour stuff, to be frank. The quality of the flyers from the graphics, to the printing to the \u201cmessage\u201d itself, looked like it had been thrown together very quickly with little thought about the potential outcome.
\nLuckily, the flyers had the complete opposite effect than the intended campaign kyboshing: It garnered support for the intended \u201cvictims.\u201d One targeted candidate got four sign requests because of that flyer to show support!
\nIt also afforded the candidates who were targeted the opportunity to come out with a positive message to combat the negative. It seemed to work in their favour.
\nAnd then there was the never- ending sign drama.
\nSigns being destroyed on a near nightly basis. Slashed. Smashed. And Stolen. Right off peoples\u2019 lawns. Just crazy.
\nI have never understood that, I have to say. What goes through someone\u2019s mind when they go about trashing someone\u2019s signs? Is it out of spite? Do they get some sort of release by the physical action of shredding up someone\u2019s sign?
\nIf the purpose of stealing the signs or slashing\/smashing them is to blunt support for a candidate, I hate to tell you but it doesn\u2019t work. Organized campaigns monitor their signs, replace them and repair them as needed. It is a ridiculous amount of work to stay on top of it.
\nOf course there is the issue of expense. Signs are expensive. And continuously having to replace your signs, and the posts and the wire frames, etc., can end up being a rather costly affair.
\nFinally, there is the drama of signs near polling stations.
\nOn Monday as the polls opened, a few candidates chose to disregard any semblance of common courtesy or fair play and put up huge signs to block other candidates signs that were already there.
\nBad form. But what can you do? Many candidates don\u2019t play fair. I guess that\u2019s politics as usual.
\nSpeaking of which, given my relationship to one of the newly elected Aurora Town Councillors \u2013 still unofficial at press time \u2013 I will no longer cover Aurora Council matters, lest I be accused of any bias.
\nI will now focus on Provincial and Federal riding related matters. Still politics, but it will be anything but usual.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Well, it is finally all over. The campaign flyers. The multitude of signs. The advertisements. The Twittering and the nattering. The \u201cDebates.\u201d All done. Praise the heavens. I think the candidates must be exhausted \u2013 I know I am! 298 days of campaigning is ridiculous. Queen\u2019s Park agrees. There is a proposal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2hJ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:05:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}